Epic 13 - blid of Mayans

[blid]

Pacal is expansive and financial, nice combo for a floodplains heavy start. But we get a coastal one, with not a single river to be seen. Lot of food though, and three nice hills.
We already have 2 warriors, so I start with stonehenge, while I'm researching fishing. Warriors are sent opposite ways.

The first hut gave a complete useless map of the ocean. Those villagers must know optics, they could have given that instead




After fishing is done, I switch to a workboat and use the crab to quickly research polytheism. I'm not sure yet what victory to chase but an easy early religion is a rarely a bad thing on monarch. Another hut found a hostile barbarian who killed my warrior. The third gave 47 gold

Buddhism is found in 3500 BC and I met Zara and Willem west and east resp shortly after. We get polytheism in 3400 BC




The two warriors are doing a good job exploring the surroundings. Justinian appears in the east.

Bronzeworking is picked after poly. Since there's not a single forest in the capital, it's more for whipping and revealing the precious copper... which in the capital. Oh, I was starting to believe copper starts were banned in RB
Early rush ? we'll see. I chose agriculture after BW for the wheat, then the wheel to connect the copper and have some defense against barbs. Finally a hut gives a tech, AH. So hunting should come next for our UU

The capital builds were workboat-> worker (whipped) -> workboat-> warrior-> partial stonhenge to size 4 -> settler


SuryaVarman appears and founds judaism a few turns later. I don't have a clue about new BTS personalities, so we'll play this by ear

I built my second city to claim horses and gold. The cows would help with growth.




I only realized later that I made a big missing those fish. Maybe I need to switch the resources on all the time. That really pissed me off, because that city had a really slow growth in my game

The capital built our first axe after the settler. I was planning to resume stonhenge next but it was built by some AI in 1900 BC. No biggie, we're better expanding anyway.

Research wise, the next wave was pottery ->writing ->priesthood

For the third city, I chose a heavy coastal one. You got to like those spots when financial




You can see in the shot that I was nearly done with COL. I founded confucianism and after quick detour to meditation, we get this




The shot above shows the religion situation at the time : two AIs are buddhist, two are jewish and the western part is deprived of religion for the moment. I was the happy owner of three holy cities, but I don't think I'm picking a religion for now.

The next city blocks the eastern part of the Mayan civilization.




This city would need some serious culture to fight off the creative Willem. It has some nice grass though.

After a rather slow expansion at the start, I'm now claiming land quickly. The AI is in all settlers out mode




For once, I agree with the blue circle. This city can be a nice production base.

The pyramids fell in 290 BC if it interests anyone. I didn't try to get them since I was concentrating on expansion.

I was planning for another wonder though. The fisherman needs his statue. Metal casting took me an eternity. I picked currency next. Here's the tech situation before entering the AD years




You could say I had a bit of a head start. But Willem is clearly showing out of the crowd. I checked the map and it appears he was the financial guy with flood plains all around. The spirit is play with the hand you are dealt right ? So let's resume the game. I dialled Hamurabi for monarchy and switched into hereditary rule.

I finish Colossus in 130 AD. 4 coins coastal tiles really rock.

This is my 6th city




It was close, Zara was sending a settler over there. This was the end of peaceful expansion, and as it happens of any expansion at all. With all the religions I managed to grab (mine and not mine), I had decided to play a 6cc cultural game. By that time, I had paper researched and a long journey towards education started. No scientists at hand to accelerate it. After education, I went for aesthetics. Some civs knew it for a while but they still refuse to trade it. Probably going after the wonders. I sold many techs, getting cash to boost my research. Aesthetics was actually researched in 3 turns, at 100% research. It was followed by drama for theatres spamming and en route to music. But let's look at the legendary candidates :

First, the capital. Clearly a strong one. It is nealry finished with the Hagia Sophia.




The second city, is the "how the hell did I miss that fish" one. Far away from its happiness cap.




I was torn between growth, commerce and production for getting those wonders done.

The last got the Moai statue to boost its production. Otherwise, it couldn't build anything.




Even with that, wonders take ages. Luckily, I was ahead in techs so there was no competition ...yet. Willem is doing a good job of cathing up and managed to get some techs ahead of me. All that with a 4cc !!




It's true I was concerntrating on building cultural stuff and spreading religions around. Still, that's an impressive performance with just 4 cities. He also picked music free artist before I had a chance. So I just resume the liberalism race

I had the national sports league quest which required to build 7 colosseums. Well, me and Willem are out of competition, thank you.

[blid]

The Hagia Sophia gave me an engineer which I burnt on an unbelievably late Parathenon in Moai staute city (860 AD).
There was still a religion available very late too, so




That gives me all 7 religions in the small mayan empire, the AI has been kind enough to spread the ones I didn't found.

This was also the turn when the first war occured in this game. Justinian declared on Suryavarman. Guess I need to do something about my military. Don't like being vulnerable when playing cultural. Tech situation :




Willem gave me that CS and I traded machinery with some other guy. And taking the chance to convert to ... free speech. Well, that would be the game where I never used bureaucracy.
I also research gunpowder, that would enable cuirassiers for later on. Trade for engineering, music and optics. Lakamha finishes a long awaited university of Sankore. Self researched printing press puts us ahead in GNP and I chose nationalism next on the road to democracy. Willem is the first to circumnavigate, using maps. Not mine, I can assure you.

Hagia Sophia gave me yet another engineer and Moai statue my first artist which I merged in "look the fish our ancestors overlooked" city. For consolation, I started the statue of liberty there. The engineer was sent there to help. In fact, he was supposed to complete Versailles in Mutal but some jerk finished it 1 turn before I could rush it.

I got a slave revolt in Mutal. I didn't have much of these but I omitted to enumerate the numerous poisouous gas that kept destroying my mines there and forge fires. I always had a lump sum of money to counter these minor drawbacks.

I was paying attention with spies and outpost units for upcoming attacks and my warrior picked that stack coming at me :




Cannons ? man, I don't really have something to stop those. Here's what defense I had in the eastern part :




You can see I also had the money necessary for upgrades. Grenadiers and some rushed cats for collateral damage should keep me safe from disaster. The workers there just finished clearing a forest. No stationing in the forest bombing down my cities.

And guess what, Justinian just saved my ass. He declared on Surya a couple turns before his units could get to Uxmal. I even traded with him for economics.

On the other side of the world, Zara decided he didn't like Sitting bull feathers hat and declares war.




Zara managed to take a city in the north and lost a city in the southern part. What's nice now with BTS is that you don't always finish with stalemate phony wars between AIs.

The statue (the stone one this time) is completed in 1600 AD. Willem beats me to physics a few turns later. Man, he's doing great.
Oh, look at the new canal system we built near Uxmal :




Uxmal is doing well on the cultural front. With all the monasteries and temples built, it is fighting against two dutch cities and faring well.

I accepted a request from Zara to convert to theocracy though I didn't use any state religion. That was enough to make him friendly and pull a defensive pact. This would secure completely the western front.

I didn't have just bad events. This one is really cool, and gratis :




Another engineer completed Broadway in Lakamha and they composed "the fishermen's lament".

Did I say I gave birth to more engineers than I think I ever did in a civ game :




Well, Eiffel tower is a must for a cultural game that goes beyond radio.

To secure the east, I signed a defensive pact with Justinian. That didn't stop Surya from declaring on him bringing me into a state of war. I didn't see much action though. I lost a frigate to a destroyer. I was worried a while when he stationed his destroyer blockading my Moai statue city but an airship made him flee. That blockade thing is really strong. It can deny nearly all coastal tiles from a city, a killer for a mostly costal city. After Justinian and Surya signed peace, I did the same by giving him 130 gold. Quite cheap to keep concentrating on important matters. I signed a DP again with Justinian.

I didn't want to stop the teching too early. After mass media (which was not really necessary), I researched biology for more hired artists. Mass media and some money let me trade with my friend Zara for his assembly line. Infantry is a nice place to stop teching I guess. More trades gave me communism, artillery and rocketry. I wouldn't say I was really defenseless

Joao gave me marble to accelerate some cathedrals. Some good luck triggered those groovy events :




The inflation thing was a bit late to really matter as per the money spent but it should be useful for a spaceship run.

I was hoping for an artist from the capital at 50% odds but I got a prophet instead. So at the end, I had 2 prophets, 1 scientist and 1 artist. The artist went for my eternally lagging city Lakamha. The others triggered two consecutive golden ages.

Too much for the creative civ. Can't fight the fishermen's culture :




An artist please ?




No, I got a merchant instead. At least, it's not a scientist. He was sent to Portugal for a juicy trading mission that helped me keep the 100% culture slider till the end of the game.

Willem decided to help me with my cultural victory and started spreading creative Construction corp in my cities. He passed by Lakamha though like it never existed. I had to spread the corporation there myself. Again something to look at, but it's probably too late to matter in a cultural game unless you do an extreme beeline.


I finally got Lakamha to legendary in 1903 AD




Here's the map at the end of the game.




No runaway AI, really good balance here. Only Willem was in a difficult situation loosing cities to Suryavarman, so he wasn't a real threat in spite of his technological breakthroughs. I am also quite satisified with the technological pace for monarch AIs on BTS. They could have launched before 2050 for sure.

And my favourite shot,




7 religions * 6 cities = 14 cathedrals. Maybe a 7*7 theme would have been better but it doesn't fit well with the three temples prerequisite for cathedrals.

I was fearing an AI attack when my cultural victory would be obvious but it didn't happen. Maybe the two DPs stopped them. I had a fleet of destroyers waiting for any ill intentions so I never really felt threatened. I think this was my first cultural victory in an RB event. The land and lack of marble and stone didn't made it ideal for a cultural game resulting in a quite late victory but I had fun toying with financial and coastal cities getting the most out of them. The crazy engineer generation helped a lot along with the tech lead I had in the early/middle game.